"That"s not so had, but it isn"t free from political scandal. I rather like it--strikes me that there might be a pretty good fellow of that name. Let me see. We"ll get off about three miles this side of Lake Villa and go over to Fourth Lake. The woods over there are beautiful."
"We should have insisted on McGlenn"s coming," said Henry.
"No," Richmond replied, "the country is a bore to John. Once he came out with me and found fault with what he termed the loose methods of nature. I pointed out a hill, and he said that it wasn"t so graceful as a mound in the park. I waved my hand toward a pastoral stretch of valley, and he said, "Yes, but it isn"t Drexel Boulevard." Art is the mistress of John"s mind. His emotions are never stirred by a simple tune, but the climax of an opera tumbles him over and over in ecstasy.
He is one of the truest of friends, and he is as game as a brook trout. He has a.s.sociated with drunkards, but was never drunk; and during his early days in Chicago he lived with gamblers, but he came out an honorable man."
"I have been reading his novels," said Henry, "and in places he is as sharp as broken gla.s.s."
"Yes, but he is too much given to didacticism. Out of mischief I tell him that he sets up a theory, calls it a character, and talks through it. But he is strong, and his technique is fine."
"In Paris he would have been a great man," Henry replied.
They got off at a milk station and strolled along a road. A piece of newspaper fluttered on the ground in front of them.
"There is just enough of a breeze to stir a scandal," said Richmond, treading upon the paper.
"When I find a newspaper in an out-of-the-way place," Henry replied, "I fancy that the world has lost one of its visiting-cards."
They stopped at a farm-house, engaged a boat, and then went down to the lake. Nature wore a thoughtful, contemplative smile, and the lake was a dimple. A flawless day; an Indian summer day, gauzed with a glowing haze. And the smaller trees, in recognition of this grape-juice time of year, had adorned themselves in red. October, the sweetest and mellowest stanza in G.o.d Almighty"s poem--the dreamy, lulling lines between hot Summer"s pa.s.sion and Winter"s cold severity.
On the train they had been boys, but now they were men, looking at the tranquil, listening to the immortal.
"Did you speak?" Henry asked.
"No," said Richmond, "it was October."
They floated out on the lake. Mud-hens, in their midsummer fluttering, had woven the rushes into a Gobelin tapestry. The deep notes of the old frog were hushed, but in an out-of-the-way nook the youngster was trying his voice on the water-dog. A dragon-fly lighted on a stake and flashed a sunbeam from his bedazzled wing; and a bright bug, like a streak of blue flame, zigzagged his way across the smooth water.
An hour pa.s.sed. "They won"t bite," said Richmond. "In this pervading dreaminess they have forgotten their materialism."
"Probably they are tired of minnows," Henry replied. "Suppose we try frogs."
"No, I have sworn never to bait with another frog. It"s too much like patting a human being on a hook. The last frog I used reached up, took hold of the hook and tried to take it out. No, I can"t fish with a frog."
"But you would catch a ba.s.s, and you know that it must hurt him--in fact, you know that it"s generally fatal."
"Yes, but it"s his rapacity that gets him into trouble. I don"t believe they"re going to bite. Suppose we go over yonder and wallow under that tree."
"All right. I don"t care to catch a fish now anyway. It would be a disturbance to pull him out. Our trip has already paid us a large profit. With one exception it has been more than a year since I have seen anything outside of that monstrous town. As long as the spirit of the child remains with the man, he loves the country. All children are fond of the woods--the deep shade holds a mystery."
They lay on the thick gra.s.s under an oak. On one side of the tree was an old scar, made with an axe, and Henry, pointing to the scar, said: "To cut down this tree was once the task a.s.signed some l.u.s.ty young fellow, but just as he had begun his work, a neighbor came along and told him that his strong arm was needed by his country; and he put down his axe and took up a gun."
"That may be," Richmond replied, "Many a hero has sprung from this land; these meadows have many times been mowed by men who went away to reap and who were reaped at Gettysburg."
After a time they went out in the boat again, and were on the water when the sun lost its splendor and, hanging low, fired the distant wood-top. And now there was a hush as if all the universe waited for the dozing day to sink into sounder sleep. The sun went down, a bird screamed, and nature began her evening hum.
In the darkness they lost the path that led through the woods. They made an adventure of this, and pretended that they might not find their way out until morning. They wandered about in a laughing aimlessness, and there was a tone of disappointment in Richmond"s voice when he halted and said, "Here"s the road."
They went to bed in the farmer"s spare room, where the subscription book, flashing without and dull within, lay on the center table. A plaster-of-paris kitten, once the idol of a child whose son now doubtless lay in a national burial-ground, looked down from the mantel-piece. There was the frail rocking-chair that was never intended to be sat in, and on the wall, in an acorn-studded frame, was a faded picture ent.i.tled "The Return of the Prodigal."
Richmond was sinking to sleep when Henry called him.
"What is it?"
"I didn"t know you were asleep."
"I wasn"t. What were you going to say?"
"Oh, nothing in particular--was just going to ask what you think of a man who lives a lie?"
"I should think," Richmond answered, "that he must be a pretty natural sort of a fellow."
CHAPTER x.x.x.
A MOTHER"S REQUEST.
At dinner, the evening after Henry had returned from the country, Ellen caused her mother to look up by saying that Miss Miller"s chance was gone.
"What do you mean?" Mrs. Witherspoon asked. "I wasn"t aware that Miss Miller ever had any chance, as you are pleased to term it. But why hasn"t she as much chance now as she ever had?"
"Because her opportunity has been killed."
"Was it ever alive?" Henry asked.
"Oh, yes, but it is dead now. Mother, you ought to see the young woman I saw at Henry"s office the other day. Look, he"s trying to blush. Oh, she"s dazzling with her great blue eyes."
Mrs. Witherspoon"s look demanded an explanation.
"Mother," said Henry, "she means our book-reviewer."
"I don"t like literary women," Mrs. Witherspoon replied, with stress in the movement of her head and with prejudice in the compression of her lips. "They are too--too uppish, I may say."
"But Miss Drury makes no literary pretensions," Henry rejoined.
"I should think not," Ellen spoke up. "I didn"t take her to be literary, she was so neatly dressed."
"When you cease so lightly to discuss a n.o.ble-minded girl--a friend of mine--you will do me a great favor," Henry replied.
"What"s all this?" Witherspoon asked. He had paid no attention to this trifling set-to and had caught merely the last accent of it.
"Oh, nothing, I"m sure," Ellen answered.
"Very well, then, we can easily put it aside. Henry, what was it you said to-day at noon about going away?"
"I said that I was going with a newspaper excursion to Mexico."